The Day of Trouble

It doesn’t matter whether you are born in a world class hospital or a hospital in an unsafe environment with poor medical care. It also won’t change anything if you were born in the early 70’s or you are Gen Z. Not even the colour of your skin can keep you away from it. We are all born into a fallen world filled with all kinds of trouble. Job 5:7 says ‘Yet man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward’.   It’s human, it’s life, it’s natural to see and experience trouble. People try to escape from trouble. Some use alcohol and drugs to drown away their troubles and sorrows. Some try to change their location to get their troubles behind them, like Jonah tried to run away to Tarshish thinking he could escape from the people and troubles of Nineveh; a place God had sent him to. In running away from one trouble, Jonah came face to face with other troubles. The ship he entered was caught in the storm. The next thing he knew, he had been swallowed by a large fish (Jonah 1).

Its utter foolishness for anyone to think you can be in a place or position where no troubles will come your way. Jesus never misguided us. He didn’t paint walking with Him as a walk in the park or like sleeping on a bed of roses. Without mincing words, Jesus clearly stated in John 16:33 that ‘In this world you will have trouble.’ While handing down guidelines and instructions on the Christian faith, Paul stated in 2 Timothy 3:12 that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. If you are in Christ, trouble comes with the territory. You can expect trouble as a natural part of your walk with God, not something strange or out of the ordinary.

In Psalm 50:15, God says we should call upon Him in the day of trouble and He will deliver us. When is this day of trouble? In Matthew 6:34, Jesus said each day has enough trouble of its own. Each day has the devil prowling around like a hungry lion looking for who to devour; that is trouble waiting to be unleashed (1 Peter 5:8). Each day has evil arrows that fly by day and terrors that take place at night; that is trouble looking for you even when you aren’t looking for anyone’s trouble (Psalm 91:5). So if each day has trouble, and God says call on me in the day of trouble, then it’s safe to deduce that we are to call on God everyday of our lives. You can’t afford to relax, let your guard down as trouble is always around the corner. Everyday must be a day of prayer because every day has a myriad of troubles that can unfold.  From losing your car, losing your job to losing a loved one, from being falsely accused of an offence you never committed to getting dumped at the altar, your business crumpling to pieces, or being diagnosed with a terminal or incurable disease.

Prayer builds our capacity to withstand and overcome the day of trouble. All through the scriptures, we see a strong link between prayer and people receiving God’s help and deliverance from the troubles of life.  Jesus wasn’t sleeping on the day of trouble; on the day he was arrested and His disciples all abandoned him. He was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane on his own day of trouble (Matthew 26). David overcame his own day of trouble, which were many, through prayer. In Psalm 40:1 He said I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined to me, and heard my cry. He brought me out of a horrible pit, out of a miry clay. The day David found himself in a horrible situation, he didn’t look for people to blame for all his troubles, he cried out to God; he prayed to God and God stretched out His hand to David to deliver David from his troubles. No wonder David had this testimony to share about God. “You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance’ (Psalm 32:7). David discovered the place to hide yourself and find safety in the day of trouble is in God. He experienced firsthand God’s ability to preserve a person from emotional, family, national and all manner of troubles.

There are people you go to see when you are in trouble and you leave them more troubled and confused. But God is a safe-house for the battered, a sanctuary during bad times (Psalm 9:9 Message Version). No trouble is too big, complex and insurmountable for God to handle. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, many and diverse are the kinds of trouble that come our way, but God can deliver us from them all if we sincerely call out to Him in prayer (Psalm 34:19). It doesn’t matter if you are in the belly of a fish, stranded at sea, on a lonely, isolated desert, in a dark valley, in a prison cell, or lying helpless on a hospital bed, whenever we call, wherever we call from, God can hear our cry for help and deliverance.

James 5:13 says is anyone in trouble, let him pray! The thing to do when you are in trouble, faced with trouble, looking eye ball to eyeball with shame and trouble is to pray! Don’t murmur, complain, sit in a corner and cry your eyes out, drink and get drunk, take drugs or even take your life. What you should do is pray! The antidote and spiritual cure for trouble is prayer. Prayer worked so powerfully in Bible times in bringing people out of trouble and it is still working in a dynamic way today.

We do not have a High Priest who is unconcerned and out of touch with our present day troubles. No we have Jesus, a sympathetic High Priest who has full and perfect understanding of all our troubles and is beckoning on us whenever we find ourselves in trouble, to come boldly, confidently and unashamedly to God’s throne of grace to receive help and mercy in the day of the trouble (Hebrews 4:15-16).

So what is that trouble before you today? Is it a spiritual, medical, financial, emotional, educational, career, business, family, reoccurring, longstanding or even a national trouble or crisis, take it to God in prayer.  As you cry out to the Lord with your voice, plead for mercy, make your requests known to God and tell him about all your troubles, you will see God keep the rivers of affliction from drowning you and the flames of the troubles of life from burning you (Isaiah 43:2).Yes, we are born into a world of trouble, but who said we must die in our troubles, when right next to us is an Ever Present help in times of trouble.

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